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BE N ・ BI N
ta yo ri
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
Former glyph that was replaced by this one perhaps depicted an「immobilized person with spread legs hanging onto a pole」so that the concept of an AIR FLIGHT, seemingly hanging in mid-air, is not so strange. Recall that very early aeroplane cockpits were tiny and not equipped with LAVAtory facilities (other than a bucket with little room to move, and watch that blowback in the stiff wind while dumping the contents), not to mention no co-pilot to assume control of the airship, so if a pilot experienced the urge, it was likely better to suppress it and chose constipation rather than soil the seat for the remaining duration of the flight ('cockpits' literally refer to a tightly enclosed area for cockfighting, hindering the escape of any chicken combatants other than by flying straight up, or 'bailing out'). AIR FLIGHTS are a great CONVENIENCE, considering travel across oceans and continents compared to other MEANS that formerly required many weeks or months.
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: advantageous; cheap; ordinary; plain; convenient; as convenient; when the chance arises; handy; easy; informal; simple; so; thus; to relieve oneself; to urinate; to defecate; equivalent to 就 : then; in that case; even if; soon afterwards
Japanese EDRDG: convenience
Unihan extended: convenience, ease; expedient
Always keep in mind that these glyphs most likely were originally designed by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that),
representing Chinese society many thousands of years ago, but intended NOT as a written or spoken language when created.
If these glyphs had been intended for language use, the sages could not have possibly designed a worse system!
Is it truly possible that all these glyphs started out as off-color jokes and puzzles?
Yes! It is, and often with multiple correct answers to each riddle, the same as is true today.
Sex had no shame in ancient China.
Why would it?
But, have there been necessary rewrites and altered explanations of the original elemental meanings over the centuries?
No one is suggesting these glyphs depict contemporary life in China, Japan, or anywhere else.
This site describes glyph meanings, not people.
These glyphs however, describe many and various things, including people, long before there were any notions of becoming politically incorrect.
The question to be answered is, should these glyphs continue being used, by anyone, anywhere, for expressing language?
(More...)
Despite how seemingly bad our human existence is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better?
Or could they have been worse?
By the way, with a limited number of the same elements used by the sages again and again to form these glyphs,
you should expect to find the same explanations again and again, as tedious as that may become, and as an inherent trait of any lexicon.
This site explains multiple meanings of glyphs ignored or censored by other sources, generally as being too embarrassing to admit today.
Primal elements
Japanese vocabulary: 229 entries
Chinese usage: 131 entries
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 4 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 55 entries
- Glyph.02538
- Strokes: 09
- jlpt-N4 grade_04
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This publication has included material from the MDBG free online English to Chinese dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
This publication has included material from the JMdict (EDICT, etc.) dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Electronic Dictionaries Research Group.
This publication has included material from the Unicode Character Database. Copyright © 1991-2016 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed under these Terms of Use.